Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

"Eine Kleine Nachtmusik": a wonderful composition by our dear Mozart. If you are expecting a thoughtful commentary on the classical genius--turn back now. This is a parenting blog afterall. The following story will challenge your refined taste.

The other night, with baby sleeping cosily in her carseat bed, my husband and I tiptoed into bed making sure not to disturb the restful babe. If we succeeded, she would sleep through the night, if not, she would wake up wanting to be fed and to have some good quality play time.

So what does this have to do with "A Little Nightmusic"? Did we put on a classical CD to ensure she remained asleep? Did we sing her soothing melodies to send her further into dreamland?

We silently got ourselves tucked into bed, said our goodnights, and prepared to join Ginny in dreamland. Then Ginny began to serenade us--she let one rip. And we're not talking a dignified little pipsqueak "toot", rather a long-winded, minute or so concerto that featured Ginny as the sole wind instrument. We looked at each other and burst into laughter. She hadn't woken up though so we buried our faces in the blankets and wiped tears from our eyes in the dark. Now the room was silent. We stopped laughing and peered over the edge of our bed down into hers. Yep. Still asleep. We settled ourselves again and waited for sleep to arrive. But alas! This was only the intermission of Ginny's solo orchestral composition! The sounds echoed on the hard plastic of the carseat. It was as if a booming tympani had been called to join the wind section. This went on for another minute or two, and once again we retreated into the blankets to stifle our laughter. Silence. The score had ended. The last tears were wiped away, and at long last, our family could sleep.

Mozart may have made his musical debut at the age of five, but if you ask me, Ginny is quite the prodigy where her talents are concerned.

"Smoke" Detectors

Being the safety-conscious new parent that I am, I happened to wonder yesterday whether or not our smoke detectors were fully functional. Being the new parent that I am, I didn't have time to check.

Today was not unlike any other weekday. My husband was at work so I got things done as the baby slept and played with her while she was awake. Finally, she fell blissfully asleep and I decided to take a shower. Know where this story is going yet?

First off, as soon as I turned on the shower, she woke up. Not a problem. Ginny has gotten to the point where staring at the shower curtain while I shower is pretty entertaining. And if that fails, there's always a couple of feet around to grab. The showering continued. No peeps from Ginny. Ah, a hot shower on a cold day, is there anything better? Any guesses yet? So Ginny stayed happy right through to the end of my prolonged shower. What a gift! I threw back the shower curtain feeling pretty cocky that I managed to get through a shower. Then my puzzling from yesterday was answered... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!!! The smoke detector decided that steam is a harmful substance. I was so afraid that this would upset Ginny, I snatched up my towel and hopped out of the shower, heading towards the smoke detector. Frantically I looked for something to disperse the steam from the detector. The nearest thing was a pair of flannel pajama pants. So I was flailing the pants in the air while dripping and holding my towel on with the other hand. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!! I dashed over to the window and tore back the curtain in order to open the window, not bothering about innocent passers-by on the street. The cool air rushed in and the beeping was silenced. Now I had to face the music and assess the damage done to my peaceful baby. I nervously looked in her direction and...she laughed.

I laughed.

As I stood in my now cold room, dripping wet, I couldn't help but think how spectacular being a parent is.

Plus now I know my smoke detectors work.

Driving

Parenting Lesson of the Day:

When you become a parent, you become a better driver.


False.

Okay I have to give myself some credit. I'm very cautious when making tricky turns, obeying the speed limit, etc. However, this Sunday I was driving home after church with a screaming baby. Desperation set in. My daughter loves to rock and bounce for as long as your legs can possibly stand it, and more. But in the car there's not much you can do. I've taken to jostling her car-seat with my right hand reaching back while driving with my left. Today this would not do the trick. I found myself purposefully driving into potholes and swerving into storm drains on the side of the road. Bump Bump. The crying would lessen. That wouldn't quite do the trick entirely. So I wouldn't slow down over speed bumps. The crying got quieter. I stopped at a red light. Uh oh, it got louder. I start to nervously pump the brake pedal in order to shake the whole car. Only a few chirps from the back seat. By the time I arrived home, she was asleep.

So my semi-reckless driving works occasionally. Only sometimes, I don't need to, and find myself hunting down potholes. One afternoon I was driving and my husband sat in the back with the baby. I swerved a bit out of instinct and he asked me calmly from the back, "Are you trying to put her to sleep?" I was unaware that this had become a subconscious thing. "Oh. Yeah... I am...".

So if you see a car swerving around the road, don't assume they're a drunk driver. They might just be a desperate parent.

The Black-Out

Parenting Lesson of the Day:

Never put your child down in a clean pile of laundry.


I'm really not quite sure why I did this, but I did, with tragic results. I'm still finding clothing, a day later, with Ginny's calling card on it. I was putting socks on her little feet and I thought: "Hey! Propping her up in this nice clean pile of laundry on my bed sounds like a fantastic idea!" No. It wasn't.

Where was my sanity? My common sense? Babies spew. All the time. And this wasn't just a dribble, this was full-fledged projectile vomit. It's like babies can sense the worst possible time to spew, and let it out with out any hesitation or remorse.

It made it wonder, have any of you parents out there done something silly like this and all the while something in the back of your head was shouting: "Don't do it you fool! Don't! Don't! Oh. You did..." Please tell me there are more silly parents like myself out there that seem to have these black-outs in common sense. Please feel free to share your humiliating stories so we can all feel better about ourselves.

Parenting Lesson of the Day

For those of you who follow my Facebook stati, you will have read several posts that I titled "parenting lesson of the day" followed by a quip about things concerning parenting I have learned the hard way, usually with humorous results. To give you an example here is one my sister-in-law told me that I particularly enjoyed:

Never, for even a minute, leave an undiapered baby alone on your carpet, especially when said baby ate 2 pieces of pizza for lunch!

True words of wisdom from a seasoned mother.

Veteran parents, you know what she means...future parents and unsuspecting readers--beware. Parenting is a humorous, messy business. Anyway, here's today's Parenting Lesson of the Day:

Someone really needs to invent cloth chip bags.

There's nothing worse than having your own guilty junk food pleasure wake up a blissfully sleeping baby. "Crinkle, Crinkle, Crunch, Crunch... Wah-Wah". *Sigh* However there is a simple solution. What?! Stop eating junk food?! Pff! Yeah right, you must not be a parent yet... No the simple answer is to revolutionize the junk food business by creating "Nap Friendly" packaging. Cloth chip bags and chocolate bags are the future--they're probably even recyclable! And please, no more of this "individually wrapped" business. Listen "Snack Food CEO's", if we parents finally get the chance to sit down and enjoy our junk food, we can't be bothered with these nonsensical wrappers! They seriously impede scarfing. Anyway, I'm thinking about the environment here.

The Beginning of Mommy-Moo

I've been called Moo by my family since long before I could remember. It propelled me into a life of loving everything cow related to the point of obsession and numerous nickname variations around the theme of "Moo". But I never stopped to consider why on earth my parents would title their adorable baby girl "Moo". When you think about it, calling a girl a cow is never very flattering... I just assumed that it was one of my dad's bizarre nicknames. After all, he called one of my brothers "Isaacarus Maximus" and my sister "Jenn-o-bot-o-bye". It never occurred to me that my nickname might have more meaning behind it. Then I found out the truth.

When we get older, it's refreshing to look through old photos and remember simpler times in our lives. I was doing just that, looking through baby photos of myself and pining for that time where I was satisfied with less, and worried about less. And as I was filtering through photos, I found a particularly cute picture of me lying on the floor, drool coming out of my mouth, and I paused there looking at my face. My nose. My nostrils were flared out beyond belief--I had a cow nose! No wonder they all called me Moo, I looked like a baby cow! Oh well, the picture was still cute. My life wasn't ruined. Actually, I thought it was funny.

I had my first baby 8 weeks ago today! In these 8 weeks, I've already learned alot. The most important thing is how valuable humor is....I deal with heavy things in my life by seeing the humor in them. Parenthood is an overwhelmingly huge job. But it's also hilarious. Some things are naturally humorous: Fact: babies fart at inoportune times (i.e. quiet churches). Other things you need to see the humor in to maintain sanity: finding yourself at 4 am covered in milk and having to change your pajamas--either from projectile vomit after a long nursing, or because those cheap nursing pads are so pathetic, you might as well stuff a diaper in the bra of your tank top and go back to sleep (done it).

The goal of this blog is to be a place where parents can share the humor of parenthood, and people looking to parenthood can have a fun, real idea of what it's like. Babies are a huge responsibility, but they are side-splittingly funny as well. My daughter kicks, snorts and flares her little cow nose just like I did and rather than fret that she doesn't smile demurely like a Gerber baby, I laugh and call her "Baby Moo".